A plan to pull bonus features from rental DVDs went awry in its initial phase, with several retailers not getting what they asked for.
The strategy, revealed last month, is intended to revive DVD sales by selling two versions of each movie. Sales outlets would get full-featured DVDs, complete with bonus content, while rental outlets would get a stripped down version with only the movie itself.
But things didn't go smoothly as planned with the first shipments of Slumdog Millionaire. Amazon.com was stuck with rental DVDs inside retail packaging and inadvertently shipped them to "a portion" of customers, according to a note on the site. Customers will have to call a Fox hotline number (1-888-223-4369) to rectify the matter.
That's not all. Video Business reports that other retailers who ordered rental copies of Slumdog Millionaire received full-featured DVDs instead. Additionally, the northwest US chain Scarecrow Video told the publication that their order of for-sale DVDs were botched as well. On the bright side, Fox is apparently working to turn Scarecrow's situation around by Monday.
Sources tell Video Business that the mix-up is a "small, isolated problem," though Fox hasn't given an official statement.
I can't imagine a foul-up like this happening often once Fox figures out what it's doing. Still, the two-tier system wasn't a great idea to begin with -- it may or may not help Fox's bottom line, but it offers no advantage whatsoever to the customer -- so little anecdotes like this make me chuckle.
